Welcome to the Other Side
by Weezley
Summary: Harry Potter: the Boy Who Lived, the prophesized saviour of the wizarding world. But after the events of his 5th year, Harry has definitely changed. This is a story of Harry dealing with his loss, his new burden of fulfilling the prophecy and the dark, sl


Welcome to the Other Side

Chapter 1 - Darkness 

Pain blinded him. Darkness enveloped him. Emptiness filled him, leaving him hollow, blank and expressionless. All there was was the pain. The sorrow. And a darkness that filled his very soul.

Lying casually on his bed, he stared up at his black ceiling; a ceiling that reflected his mood, that suffocated him with its identical pressure, and yet blanketed him with its ubiquitous grief.

He loved the night. This darkness was both mysterious and comforting, treacherous yet soothing and silent yet understanding. Darkness did not judge for in darkness nothing is visible and therefore everything is equal. Darkness was black and evil, twisted and tortuous, which ironically reflected his mood the best. As he continued to stare at the black nothingness it stared back from all directions: two dead eyes swallowing the darkness, two blank minds patiently waiting for some sign of light, and two black souls consumed and corrupted by one powerful word: darkness.

He had not always loved the dark. In fact, for most of his life he had hated all meanings of it. But darkness, he found, was definitely an acquired taste. And after all he had been through in the last few months, darkness was more appealing than any alternative right now.

Harry Potter was lying lethargically on his back, hands folded behind his head as he stared remorsefully at the ceiling. It was nearly ten o'clock at night; the sun had just gone down signifying the end of another meaningless day of his summer. He had been lying on his bed like this for over two hours now, waiting for that blood red sun to sink deeply below the horizon line and for night to unfold its splendour. Waiting for this beautiful, magical moment when he was consumed in darkness, when he was sweetly submerged into numbness, this temporary relief from his constant pain. Harry knew this moment would be brief so he relished it, closing his eyes peacefully.

Whether from exhaustion or just extreme lethargy Harry did not know, but with the closing of his eyes he was almost immediately plunged into the semi-conscious state of sleep. Harry never reached his true level of sleep anymore, yet nightmares somehow continued to plague him. Now, as the darkness with his eyes open mirrored that of his closed lids, the beginnings of images began to form. First a blank face with short black hair that fell casually on his forehead…then warm black eyes completed the face, wrinkled in laughter…laughter that was soon replaced by shock as his body fell, fell through a wispy veil…suddenly the man's skin became deathly white, his nose shrunk to two mere slits for nostrils and his eyes…his eyes turned a dark blood-red…

Snapping his eyes open Harry sat up abruptly in bed, panting hard. Even those two short images had drenched him in sweat. Darkness surrounded him still, but now it was the painful, suppressing darkness, the kind that forced him to look inwards and drown in the depressing contents he found there.

But those images were no longer a shock. Him waking up drenched in sweat from a brief spell of peace was no longer a shock. The suddenly sinister blackness was no longer irksome. This was a routine. This was Harry's life this summer. He knew no joy. He saw no light. There was only emptiness, filled occasionally with pain, sorrow and numb disbelief.

Every night he watched the sun set. Every night he lay in the darkness for hours until a shaky semblance of sleep overpowered him. And every night he woke up from that sleep, drenched in sweat and unable to face the utter darkness any longer.

Swinging his legs over the bed he stood up and crossed the room to his desk. It was still pitch black but he had become accustomed to this utter darkness and his eyes had both adjusted and memorized the way to his desk. He hardly even fumbled as he reached for the candle he knew was there and lit it with a casual wave of his hand. This wandless magic was something he had discovered during the long lonely hours of the day when he had nothing better to do but probe the limits of his magical powers. To his great astonishment he had discovered a power much stronger than he had ever imagined he possessed.

Ironically, Harry had gotten the idea to search his magical abilities from the Dursleys. Well he supposed they weren't solely responsible but they had pushed him in the right direction. Dudley, who was avidly pursuing his boxing talents, was told by his new personal trainer that meditating would help clear his mind and focus on his opponent. So Dudley had started practicing meditation (in the secret security of the living room of course so that none of his friends could catch him looking like a fool), failing miserably and falling asleep more often than not.

At first Harry paid no heed to it for it reminded him forcefully of Occlumency and that brought nothing but bad memories. But then he began experiencing these odd brief spells during that moment between sleep and awake; a flash that momentarily revealed a fiery substance of a golden colour with red sparks. After he had seen this vision several times he came to realize it was a part of him, part of his inner core. That was when he made the connection that perhaps deep meditation, deeper than the clearing of his mind required for Occlumency, could allow him to reach his inner core and examine that ball of fire.

It had been a long and tedious process, one that he had only just managed to perfect. It took him two weeks just to get the meditation mastered. Every time he tried to clear his thoughts a vision of Sirius or Voldemort would suddenly rear up and he would have to start all over again. Once he was able to successfully clear his mind of all thoughts, wipe it clean as a fresh slate and relax utterly, he discovered that there were all these red sparks flashing in his mind. Immediately he would try to seize hold of those sparks but it was a long time before he could actually wrap his mind around one.

It seemed to him that if he could get hold of one of those sparks he could follow it down to his inner core. But that proved to be more difficult than he suspected. The sparks were powerful and required a lot of energy to maneuver. Another week passed before he was able to gain control over one of them and guide it down towards his core. What he discovered there was incredible: his magical core was like a big ball of yarn, fiery strands wrapped around each other with multitudes of strands branching off from the ball like stray threads, sizzling and sparking with magical energy. The moment Harry saw this he had abruptly felt himself jerked back to reality, his hold on that magical spark abolished. It appeared a great deal more control would have to be exerted in order to harness even one stray strand from that ball.

It had taken him until his birthday to exert enough energy to complete the task. And what he found was definitely unexpected, to say the least. What he grasped in his metaphorical hand was a sliver of his magic, a thread of his powers like a limp, molten wand. For in time he learned that this one strand of his magical core could be released from his body, through his mind, and perform wandless magic. The first time he had tried this, he had inadvertently set his entire nightstand on fire, which then promptly burnt to a mere pile of ashes before he could attempt to summon up more magic to put it out (he had conveniently forgot about the muggle way of putting out fires). He hadn't even bothered explaining its absence to the Dursleys. He knew they wouldn't care, or more accurately they would be too afraid to have a reaction.

Now Harry could conjure up a strand of that core without hardly any energy at all, performing the desired magic within seconds. But this wandless magic had its limits. For instance, he could not, say conjure up a Patronus charm without the use of a wand. It was just not possible. There was certain magic, he was quickly finding out, that required the use of a wand indefinitely. In fact, more often than not the only magic that could be performed without a wand were small tasks like lighting that candle. But Harry was content with those limitations. He was content with only a little magic. A little was better than none. A little was enough to console him, to make him still feel connected to the wizarding world. Because Merlin knew that was the only way in which he still did…well that and his constant corrupted thoughts that constantly plagued his mind…the thoughts that he was inextricably bound to, that he permanently wallowed in against his own volition. Thoughts of Voldemort and the prophecy. Thoughts of Sirius.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Harry shook his head to try and rid it of all residues of them. He did not want to think of Sirius. Not now.

Sitting down on the stiff chair before his desk, he pulled today's - or yesterday's he supposed, it was past midnight now - copy of the Daily Prophet over so that the flame flickered over it eerily. Lifeless black eyes stared back at him through a gaunt face framed with long glossy black hair from the picture on the front page. Harry knew that face, that mouth twisted in a permanent sneer…he knew those deadened eyes, eyes that only lit up with the light of torture…and murder…The face of a Dark wizard, the face of a Death Eater – the face, of Bellatrix Lestrange.

Again, that raw hatred rose in Harry, only this time it was stronger, grown in intensity, steadily deepening to the deepest loathing. That was one thing that he had noticed lately. The stronger he became in his wandless magical abilities, the stronger his emotions became – particularly feelings like hatred, sorrow, jealousy, greed, pain and revenge. In other words, feelings that he was not proud of yet could not stop.

Everyday there was a new picture of a Death Eater on the front cover of the Daily Prophet. It appeared the Ministry was attempting to make wizards aware of these deadly faces by repeatedly showing the same ones over and over again. Part of Harry knew it was for a good cause, knew that the Ministry's intentions were for once legitimate and that they were just trying to prevent wizards from having to face confrontation with these Death Eaters, but the more cynical side of Harry, the part that had become sarcastic and snide and pessimistic, was inclined to laugh. What good would showing people pictures do? So what if they could recognize, say, Anthony Dolohov in the street? By the time they realized who it was they would be blasted into oblivion! He had also noticed that there was never a picture of Voldemort, though Harry supposed that would be quite pointless. Everyone knew what Voldemort looked like, and he still constantly popped up in people's dreams, not just Harry's. That pale face like a snake's and red eyes could not be mistaken nor easily forgotten. Besides, Harry mused with guilty amusement, if someone was that unfortunate to come close enough to snap a photograph of Voldemort, they would not live to print that picture.

Harry was rambling and he knew it. And yes, it is possible for someone to ramble without speaking any words. It takes place when one's thoughts are so jumbled and chaotic that the little voice inside your head starts to reel them off in quick succession. This mind-encased word-vomit usually takes place when one is either practically dead from exhaustion, bored out of their minds, highly confused and bemused or when they are trying to avoid thinking about something. Harry's current case was due to a twisted combination of all of these. Namely the latter, being avoidance of a single, pressing and often unpleasant thought.

This thought was staring him in the face with her taunting eyes. As he watched Bellatrix blink languidly, helplessly drawn to this oddly captivating picture, he could almost see her mouth moving, taunting in a sickening baby voice, "Did you _love_ him, baby Potter?"

Hatred surged through Harry's body, hatred far greater than he had ever known. A hatred so strong that it even surpassed the title of loathing. It was a feeling from deep within, a feeling that coursed through his veins like a river of poison, consuming every cell. For a moment he was sure he could perform the Cruciatus curse on her this time, for his hatred was so strong that he almost believed it could transfer the incredible, all-consuming pain wrenching his heart into her. He would never forget what she did. He would never forget the pain she caused him. He would never forget the look of triumph on her face as his godfather fell behind that curtain. He would never forget that she was the reason he was so damned miserable this summer, why he had so much bottled up rage and depression with no release. He would never forget her. Ever.

Picking up the newspaper, he chucked it across the room in frustration, unable to look at it any longer. Was this it for him? Was he to be forced to live each day locked up in this hell, this unnatural torture chamber known as his mind? Was this to be the way of the rest of his summer? Wallowing in a pool of pain, sorrow and evil thoughts, an endless cycle of steadily darker feelings until – until what? Until he became a bitter, cynical, evil teenager? Until the old Harry Potter was lost forever to the other side? Until he couldn't stand himself any longer and ended his pain the easy way? What had he become? This wasn't him, Harry Potter did not have suicidal thoughts. Harry Potter did not embrace the dark. Harry Potter was an eternal optimist who believed in the good in people. Harry Potter was the deadliest enemy of Lord Voldemort, or so the prophecy had said. So what was he doing dwelling in darkness? Why couldn't he pull himself together and think of the good things?

Harry tried for a moment, he really tried. But the only problem was there _were_ no good things. Harry couldn't remember one. Not a single one. The only feelings he could identify were pain and suffering, the only memories he could dredge up were ones of death, and the only prospects of the future he could envision were visions of more pain, suffering and death, ending in that final horror, that final test: the deadly duel between him and Voldemort.

He was alone in this world now. Abandoned. Isolated. Alone. There was no one left who understood. No one who could help him, who he could rely on for aid, not even Dumbledore. There was no one to save him from his fate but himself, and that scared the hell out of him. There was nothing but his own dark thoughts and the mirrored darkness of his room for company. Nothing.

Blowing out the candle, he lay back on his bed, eyes wide open as they stared unseeing at the impenetrable darkness surrounding him. Here he would wait for the sun to rise. Here he would wait for a new dawn, one that would bring even less hope than the previous. It was times like these, with the prospect of a new sunrise, that he loved the darkness.


End file.
